For true business growth, you can´t expect word of mouth to bring you all your business. Local pay per click is a very cost effective method of advertising and is also a very good way to bring in targeted traffic to your website.

Local pay per click keywords are far more effective than general keyword phrases and will tend to direct traffic that is specifically looking for your type of business in your area. That´s what makes local pay per click so useful, you only pay for people who click on your ad. If no one clicks, you pay nothing. And people who do click will be those looking for local businesses.

There is an excellent blog on pay per click marketing. It isn´t exclusively for those looking to advertise with local pay per click, but all the information there is quite relevant and it is worth a read. I highly recommend checking out Pay Per Click Journal, another of the Brick Marketing blogs that is designed to help you run a successful business.

If you have a local business and you want to advertise online, there are two essential resources that you should be familiar with. You will have to list your business with Google Local and Yahoo! Local. These are starting places, however.

Other essential local advertising resources include Superpages, CitySearch, and other local advertising directories. You should check to see if your local community has a directory. If not, then list your business with Google Local and Yahoo! Local. You can also advertise in niche directories are specific to your business. Why would you do this?

You would advertise your local business in niche industry directories because related, noncompetitive businesses can lead you to customer relationships through their list of networks and contacts. That’s a very valuable way to make connections for your own business. Don’t leave it out.

AOL recently exposed their list of top search phrases in 2007 and local search engine optimized phrases were in the top 2! Apparently people search for local weather most often, but right behind that was local businesses, something that really applies to those reading this blog.

Number seven on AOL´s top 2007 searches was local maps. If your business isn´t already on Google Maps, you might want to consider putting it there, since this is in the top 10 searches of the year. Part of your local search engine optimization should include images and maps for the best visibility in the search engines.

Keeping an eye on the top searches is important if you want to know how to get into the top local search engine results. Knowing exactly what people are searching for makes it easier to pinpoint the right keyword phrases. With all the top search engines offering their top phrases, it is easy to see what the most popular local search engine searches are and optimize for them.

Local search engine optimization pays off, since people really are looking for information on businesses in their own town or area. By setting up your site to bring in those local searches, you will end up with a lot more traffic as more and more internet users look locally.

While local pay per click and Yellowpages are common local online advertising techniques, sometimes you need something a bit different to catch people´s attention. Local online advertising can be very effective when performed with a twist.

Press Releases
Sending out press releases to assorted news sites isn´t the only way to use your releases. Why not send them to blogs and websites that are not necessarily based on news, but are in the same niche as your business? This can be a very effective method of drawing attention to your business and if they write about you, you can be sure that word of mouth is the best form of local online advertising.

Contests
If your business lends itself to a contest, this is an excellent way to get local online advertising . . . for free! There are hundreds of contest sites on the internet and by submitting your contest to them, you´ll find that you get quite a bit of attention!

Take a minute to brainstorm some new local online advertising ideas. While the standard methods work, sometimes it´s nice to give your local online advertising a little boost with a fresh idea.

Any business that doesn´t have a blog is probably not ranking as high as they would like for their keywords. Local search engine optimization is far easier for blogs than for static websites and can be an excellent method of advertising your local business.

What do you write about on a business blog? That depends. Most businesses find that writing for both local search engine optimization and for readers is best. Obviously, readers don´t want to see review after review of your local business, but you can turn it into something useful that is also full of keywords.

For example, if you have an auto garage, you might write an auto maintenance blog. This could have posts on how to check your tires to see if they are low on air, clips from the news about auto safety, choosing the right mechanic, etc. Link the keywords back to your business site and you´ll be surprised what it does for your local search engine optimization.

Blogs need frequent fresh content, which makes them quite appealing both to search engines and to readers. The hard part is getting that content. You can hire a freelance writer to do some posts so that you don´t spend your life writing, or just outsource the entire blog to someone who knows what they are doing. You focus on your business and a company like Brick Marketing runs your blog for you, complete with links back to your site. It´s a way to get the best local search engine optimization without having to stress out over keywords and writing daily articles.

With Google being one of the leading local pay per click options out there, it could be interesting if they manage to buy the 700 megahertz band wireless spectrum. This would allow Google to produce telephones that would be perfectly integrated with their idea of local mobile marketing.

According to Cnet, Google phones could direct the entire future of wireless networks.

The 700MHz spectrum, which has been used to provide analog TV service, travels far and penetrates walls. As a result, it’s considered the last remaining chunk of attractive wireless airwaves and is viewed as an opportunity to expand the Internet to a new frontier.

As you can well imagine, this could really open up the internet access, and therefore the options for local mobile marketing. Currently, internet access via mobiles is somewhat limited due to strict control of what software and and internet networks are available. Apparently, Google plans to open all this up if they win the bid in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s auction for the bandwidth. The auction begins on January 24, 2008.

Local pay per click advertising can rapidly get out of hand and if you aren´t careful, you will end up spending too much for very few results. However, there are a few ways to help you save some money when advertising via local pay per click.

Keep your bid low. It may be tempting to get into a bidding war with the competition, but you will just end up spending more cash. If necessary, look for new local pay per click keywords to use.

Only use local pay per click advertising for worthy products. If you are selling very low-priced products, for just a dollar or two, make sure it´s worth your while to actually advertise them this way.

Figure out your conversion rate. How many visitors to your website equals a sale? That should be the main factor in setting your local pay per click bid. For example, if it takes 200 visitors to get one sale that gives you $30 profit, you don´t want to pay over 30 cents per click or you will be paying more than your product is worth.

Test different ads and keywords. Obviously, the higher the conversion rate, the more money you make, so it pays to find the best converting ads and keywords and use them often.

Using these tips will help you save money, but it is always a good idea to set a local pay per click advertising budget ahead of time and make sure you stick to it. That way, you´ll be sure not to overspend.

While local online advertising is something that has been around for quite some time, local mobile marketing is relatively new and promising. As more and more people rely on their mobile phones to surf the net while commuting or waiting in a doctor´s office, more possibilities in the world of local mobile marketing are opening up.

It is estimated that by 2010, there will be about 3.3 billion mobile users world-wide, which means your target market will most likely have a cell phone and will probably be surfing the web on it. More people have access to a mobile than they do to a PC, plus with such easy usability, they will be more likely to look things up online using their phones. This can only improve as phones do, making local mobile marketing one of the top ways to advertise your business in the near future.

One of the benefits of local mobile marketing is that your messages are far more likely to be actually read by the recipient. On a PC, these messages might be flagged as spam for certain words, but on a mobile, you can get straight to the user, at least for now.

Experts agree that while local mobile marketing is just getting started now, it will shortly be a very popular and useful medium for local advertising. It is well worth it to start looking into local mobile marketing now.

While there have been quite a few changes lately in the Google ranks, link building is still one of the most important local search engine optimization methods out there. As long as you aren´t buying links, but rather, building them naturally, your local business should do well.

The idea behind links in local search engine optimization is that the more websites linking to your business, the more useful your website. While you may not always have a choice, you want the anchor text in these incoming links to use the keywords that you are trying to rank for in the local search engines. For example, rather than have “this site” linked, you want “My Keywords” to be linked. This gives your local business more weight with the search engines like Google.

Building links, while a vital local search engine optimization method, takes a lot of time. So, you may find that it is best to hire this work out to a site like Brick Marketing. That way you can focus on the more interesting parts of your business and let someone else worry about local search engine optimization techniques like building links.

Everyone makes mistakes. It´s how we learn. But when it comes to local online advertising, you don´t want to make too many errors that will end up costing you big money and leave you with nothing to show for it. Here are some of the most common local online advertising mistakes that businesses make.

Choosing general keywords. While you might get lots of hits from a keyword like “computer repair” or “fast food”, it won´t help if you have visitors from Canada and you´re based in Florida. Use a website like KeyCompete to find good local online advertising keywords and keyword phrases that include your location. This way, you will only be paying for targeted traffic, people who are looking for your type of business, in this area.

Cheap Yellow Page listings. Using Superpages is a great way to get your business noticed . . . but not if it´s hidden away in the depths of the ad listings! Pay a little extra to get featured and your local online advertising will bring in more targeted traffic. Superpages is one of the top websites that appear on Google, so you want to be at the top of the listings.

Focusing on just one website. Superpages or Overture might be great ways to advertise, but they aren´t your only options for local online advertising. Make sure you check out all the options and try placing your business on more than one. You´ll be more likely to pick up extra traffic and sales.

By avoiding these common local online advertising mistakes, you will be ahead of your competitors. Make sure you take all options into account and try to go with focused keyword phrases to boost your local online traffic.

Keywords are absolutely vital when you are using alternative forms of local online advertising, like article marketing. Article marketing can be a very effective method of promoting your business, but you need the right keywords.

Using a service such as KeyCompete or Keyword Discovery can be a big help in finding the right keywords to use in your alternative local online advertising. Using long tail keyword phrases, which are phrases that have three or more words in them, can boost your traffic by quite a bit.

Since you are running a local online advertising campaign, your keyword phrases will most likely include your location. For example, rather than “Babysitting services” you will want to have something like “babysitting services in Chicago”. This is what people will be looking for when they search for a local business. Take advantage of the keywords found with KeyCompete or Keyword Discovery and you will see a boost in sales.

Many websites that offer advertising slots are not local and you would end up paying extravagant amounts of money to advertise your local business to the entire world. It´s far better to find local online advertising opportunities and not only spend less money, but focus on your target market, close to home.

A good way to discover websites that offer local online advertising is to search for your top keyword phrases, including your location. Any search engine will pop up with several websites that you can then contact about advertising.

Another option is to do a search using search terms related to travel and vacations to find local tourist websites that sell local online advertising. If you use the tools available to you, it can be very easy to find websites that are relevant to your product and service, and in the local area.

Obviously, it is easier to find a local online advertising opportunity in a major city like New York or Los Angeles, but smaller town businesses should also be able to find advertising openings like this.

Local Pay Per Click is a very effective method of promoting your business . . . if you do it properly. Otherwise, it could end up costing you a lot of money! I can´t tell you how many people come to me having already spent a small fortune on local pay per click, without seeing results.

If you want to get started fast and be successful right from the start, it might be a good idea to consider local pay per click management. Hiring a company to run your local pay per click advertising campaign is a good idea for several reasons.

First of all, you will be getting skilled copywriters who probably know a thing or two more than you do about writing short copy that sells. Don´t underestimate the power of good copywriting, it is the only reason people will click on your ads.

Another reason to consider hiring local pay per click management is because they understand what is involved and will be able to test and track all ads . . . and know what to do with the information they record. While the average marketer can certainly learn these techniques, it takes time to learn how to do local pay per click well and you might find that it is worth paying someone else to do it for you.

Whether you decide to do your own local pay per click management or hire a company, keep in mind that it is definitely one of the most effective methods of advertising your local business.

Local search engine optimization is very important for local advertising and it all starts with keyword phrases. With the right keyword phrase, you can be right at the top of the search engines when people look for your specialty. The trick is to select the right keywords.

One of my favorite tools for finding low competition keywords is Wordtracker. This is a very easy system to use. You just type in the word or phrase that you are thinking of and you will get a long list of similar words and phrases that are searched for on search engines.

In order to make this work for you, you will want to use your location as well as the keywords that describe your company. Let´s say, for example, that you have a shoe making business in Chicago. You would want to type in “Chicago” and “Shoe making” and see what comes up. Click on a search term and you´ll see another list pop up to the right that will tell you how often these terms are searched for.

Wordtracker is a very useful tool to help you find low competition keyword phrases that make local search engine optimization a piece of cake. Once you have selected all relevant keyword phrases, the system will go through them and tell you which phrases or words are most valuable for local search engine optimization.